Girl’s afraid pet will be lonely at home, so she puts him in her backpack & sneaks him into school
Some kids bond with dogs, and others with cats, but for 11-year-old Bella Sellers, her best buddy is a bearded dragon named Jango. When it comes to pet types, lizards are definitely a little out of the ordinary. However, that doesn’t make the bond that the two share any less real.
According to Bella’s mom, Tiffany Kennedy, the bearded dragon and her daughter are basically inseparable.
While lizards aren’t typically known as the friendly type, Jango loves humans. Ever since Bella adopted the cute reptile, they have been attached at the hip.
“He sleeps with her nightly,” Kennedy told The Dodo. “He goes everywhere we go. He loves to be around people.”
Whether the family is going out to run errands or just lounging around the home, Jango is there to keep Bella company.
In fact, the only time that they don’t spend hanging out together is when Bella has to go to school. Lizards aren’t allowed in the classroom.
Although, that didn’t stop Bella from trying to bring him in recently hidden in her backpack. Jango normally hangs out during the day with Bella’s stepdad who is retired, but on this particular day, he wasn’t able to babysit the lizard because he had a doctors appointment to go to.
Bella couldn’t stand the thought of Jango having to spend the day by himself alone and sad so she did what any loving 6th grader would do.
She put him in her Vera Bradley backpack and jumped on the school bus.
The two made it all the way to 5th period before they were discovered by an inquisitive teacher.
That’s when the matter was brought to the attention of the assistant school principal. He was forced to call Bella’s parents.
“He said, ‘Ma’am, did you know she snuck her bearded dragon in her bag?'” explained Kennedy. “I freaked out and of course said, ‘No, oh goodness. Is he OK?’ and just apologized. They laughed and asked if we could please come get him.”
Luckily, it wasn’t too big of an infraction.
The principal simply asked Kennedy to come in and pick up her daughter’s pet. The situation also inspired the Bay District Schools to make a public service announcement on their Facebook page about it.
“Parents, we love pets just as much as anyone but a backpack (Vera Bradley no less) is not a good place for a bearded dragon to spend the day. We rehoused him temporarily in a courier box until his adults could return him home. Parents please check those backpacks in the am!” the post said.
They later modified the post to add details about the motive behind smuggling the lizard into school.
It caused the story to go viral.
“UPDATE: We’ve heard from Jango’s adult and he has been successfully secured back at home. His student owner didn’t want him to be sad at home all alone today so she brought him to school for some company,” the post reads.
People just loved how cute the story was. Although Bella’s plan ultimately failed, we can all identify with not wanting our pets to be lonely while we have to go take care of our daily responsibilities.
“All we could do was laugh,” Kennedy said. “It’s bringing smiles to people’s faces. My daughter loves animals.”
The 6th grader and her pet lizard definitely made an impression on a whole lot of people out there. It’s a story that Bella and her family will be laughing about with their friends for many years to come.
Check out the original viral Facebook post from Bay District Schools below.
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https://www.facebook.com/BayDistSchools/posts/2756744361038281:0